Goodbye, AZ

I feel as if I should write a farewell post. We moved from Phoenix almost 2 months ago (hard to believe) ! It was an amazing four-year adventure and we will cherish our Phoenix memories and most important the lifelong friends we made. We will miss everyone dearly.

But onto a new chapter... we moved to Farmington, CT about 2.5 weeks ago and both started our new jobs. I am teaching high school chemistry at Conard High School ( in the West Hartford District). I am not coaching and am completely in withdrawal. I miss my runners!!!

Keeper will be joining a practice in Avon, CT called Whole Health Associates, LLC. Because he is waiting to receive is board scores and finalize his CT license, he is currently working part time at the office assisting the chiropractor.

Onyx is (well, we all are) enjoying the much cooler weather in CT and loves taking shady walks on the bike path and through the neighborhoods. I can't wait for her to see (and play in) snow for the first time.

More updates later...

California Trip Part 2: Big Sur

Last Thursday, we left Paso Robles and drove west and up the coast to southern Big Sur to Treebones Resort, where we had booked a 3 night stay. Keeper and I had been to Treebones 3 summers ago (again on our Tour de CA) but we camped both nights. This time around, each couple booked campsites for one night and separate yurts for the next two nights. Treebones is awesome; the views are beautiful, the staff is friendly (hippies usually are) and it is very relaxing. There is no TV and although the lodge boasts free WiFi, it only worked in certain spots so I was lucky to check email once a day on Keeper's iphone.

The first night there, we pitched our tents, cracked open some of our Paso wine (and beer for the boys) and snacked on our gourmet cheeses. We then headed to the on-site sushi bar (new addition to Treebones since we'd last been) and had a fabulous dinner. After dinner we enjoyed some more wine and played Apples to Apples at Karen & Mike's campsite before calling it a night.

The next morning, Keeper snapped some pictures peering out of our tent...just gorgeous. We had breakfast at the lodge and then packed up our campsites, left some of our stuff to be transported to our yurts, and then headed up the road to Limekiln State Park for some light hiking. Keeper and I had been to this park 3 summers ago, but it was so pretty we wanted to come back. We did the hike to the kilns and then the hike to the waterfalls and then hiked down to the beach for awhile. We had our picnic lunch at the park and then drove north to Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park. This park has an AMAZING McWay Falls/Overlook trail with a waterfall that pours onto the beach. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. We ended up doing more sushi for dinner Friday night and then hung out in Mike and Karen's yurt for the evening, drinking wine and playing board games.

On Saturday, we had breakfast at the lodge again, then headed south to the Salmon Creek Trailhead to do some hardcore hiking. We headed up the Salmon Creek Trail with intentions of hiking to Estrella Camp and back for a total of 6.5 miles. The trail was very steep (the first mile completely uphill) with amazing views. Our friends were not that into the hike so we split up about a half mile through and Keeper and I continued on our own. We got to the first camp (Spruce Camp) which was 2 miles in, crossed the creek (on rocks), saw some waterfalls...and then noticed the trail got VERY steep with no vegetation...just rocks on a landslide area...and we decided no one needed to slide to their death on a dangerous trail...so we had lunch at Spruce Camp and headed back down the mountain. When we got back to the bottom, we scrambled down the boulders to meet up with our friends who were hanging out at Salmon Creek Falls. This was a really short trail and it was very crowded. We didn't get that close to the actual falls/swimming hole because there were loads of drunk teenagers crowding up the swimming hole....booo... We decided to head back to Treebones to enjoy the hot tub and take a nap.

Dinner turned out to be a pleasant surprise of a very reasonably priced BBQ (Keeper got the steak, I had freshly seared ahi tacos). We were also treated to a live blues duo outside of the lodge. We hung out and watched the hippies dance for a little while, then played some more games in the yurt and called it a night. We got up early the next morning and headed back to Phoenix. It was a great trip and we were sad to leave California.

California Trip Part 1: Paso Robles

We decided to plan one last west coast vacation before we moved back east. Back in early spring we decided to use our tax return money on a trip to California. We decided to go with another couple, our good friends Karen & Mike. Since we absolutely LOVED Big Sur when we went 3 summers ago as part of our big 2 week CA vacation, we knew we wanted to return (and bring our friends). Keeper suggested Paso Robles for a night on the way out to Big Sur. Wine country? Count me in!!!! I did an initial Internet search for Paso Robles bed and breakfasts... and stumbled upon Bella Collina. Instead of a traditional bed and breakfast, it was a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom guest house that is part of a winery. At a very reasonable price to split between 2 couples, we decided to book it...and what the heck, go for 2 nights instead of one.


We drove out to Paso Robles last Tuesday and the trip took a little over 9 hours. Bella Collina Vineyards was located just a mile outside of town on top of a hill and it was gorgeous. Paso was having very hot weather (in the high 90's) but no humidity and a strong breeze so it felt good to us desert dwellers. Bobbie (the owner) was a sweet older woman who met us, showed us the house and gave us suggestions on some wineries. The guest house was awesome; really clean, spacious, and cute. It was cool to be her only guests too...everything (meals, snacks, etc) was catered to us...not a group of strangers in a bed and breakfast. We went to Robert Hall first and were VERY impressed with everything we tasted. Bobbie was kind enough to call ahead for us, as Robert Hall is a personal friend of hers. We got to use her "club discount" which amounted to free tastings for all of us and 20% off the wine we bought. We each bought 3 bottles :)

Afterwards we went back to Bobbie's where she met us with a wonderful snack of bread and olive oil (she makes her own) and a bottle of her Cabernet Sauvignon. It was delicious. We also got some restaurant tips and decided to go to Basil Thai in Paso Robles. The food was great and we headed back to the vineyards to call it a night. The next morning everyone got up early and we were out the door by 6:45 am. Mike and I wanted to run and Karen and Keith drove into town to walk around the square and get coffee for everyone. I had a gorgeous run through the rolling hills of wine country. I saw deer, plenty of birds, and just took in the awesome cool morning weather and scenery. Although super hilly, my 7 mile run was fabulous. After everyone met back up again at Bobbie's we had a breakfast feast on her patio. She is an amazing cook and there is nothing like a huge, fresh breakfast after a hard run.

We took some more winery suggestions from Bobbie and decided to go to Lone Madrone and Ken Volk, since both share a tasting room space. We tasted at the Lone Madrone counter, then walked around the corner and tasted at Ken Volk. We liked both. We had our picnic lunch outside the tasting rooms and then Karen and I dropped Keith and Mike off at Firestone Walker Brewery. They had been planning/talking about this part of the trip for MONTHS. They were so excited. We took the car and headed to River Oaks Hot Springs Spa for our previously booked "winemakers package". We each got a 60 minutes massage and then shared an hour in a hot tub full of natural hot springs water complimented by a small bottle of red wine. Heaven!! After the spa, we picked up the boys, who had a GREAT time drinking beer all afternoon and went back to Bobbie's for an arugula and baked goat cheese salad and a bottle of her award winning Viogner. We decided to go to Thomas Hill Organics in Paso Robles for dinner and were not disappointed.

On our last morning in Paso, I got up early and had another fabulous 7 mile run followed by another fabulous breakfast made by Bobbie. We took some pictures out on her patio with the rose garden and then packed up our stuff and said goodbye. We stopped in town at a little cheese shop to pick up some goodies for Big Sur and then drove to Le Vigne Winery to do one more wine tasting before heading to the coast. Le Vigne was cool in that you could do a normal tasting OR you could to a 5 wine tasting paired with 5 cheeses OR a 5 wine tasting paired with 5 CHOCOLATES. Keeper and I both did the chocolate and it was AMAZING. None of us bought any wine here but Karen and I did buy some chocolate :) We had another picnic lunch outside this winery and then...








headed for Big Sur.

A Sad Goodbye...

i


... my track season ended last week with our banquet last Tuesday. Since the team is so big, we hold it in the school cafeteria. One of the other coaches works in food services (and has his catering license) so he is in charge of the food every year. This year he did an asian theme with cupcakes and ice cream for dessert. We hand out letters to the varsity letter winners, certificates for the JV kids, and trophies to the top senior, junior, sophomore, and freshmen athletes. We also recognize our seniors. This year we got our seniors a purple hooded North Canyon track & field sweatshirts (the coaches each got one too).

My girls' distance runners really surprised me this year with the gift. I am used to their funny cards and their homemade items but this year they went all out. Besides the usual flowers and cards, they got me a silver jewelry box engraved with "Coach Y" and "NCHS 2011". Inside the box was a silver chain link bracelet with a charm that says "NCHS 2011" on one side and "Girls Distance" on the other. I was floored. Even the boys team got me an "NCHS Distance" sticker for my car. My co-coach (whom I've coached with for 6 seasons of track/cross country) got me a purple long-sleeve nike "North Canyon Cross Country" running shirt and nike cold-weather running beanie.

I cannot begin to express how much I will miss my running "family". I never knew the hours I would spend training with these people and how much fun we would have. I was talking to some of the parents I've known for a few years now and I was overwhelmed with their compliments. I never actually thought I taught anyone about running. Running was always a hobby for me and I thought I was learning about the sport right along with my kids these past few years. One of the parents told me that their daughter said, "We have to get Coach Y something REALLY nice this year. She is like a 2nd mother to us." It is probably the highest compliment I've ever received. LOVE THOSE GIRLS!!! These are just a few pictures of me with my senior girls from the banquet.

I Still Don't Want No Scrubs...or I Get Scrubbed in Nice Connecticut Beach Towns too...

Yep, I do. I was running a 1.3-ish mile loop around my in-laws waterfront property in the lovely little "Woodmont on the Sound" community in Milford, CT when...yes a car honked at me (scared the sh*t out of me, too). And since I was doing multiple laps of this loop, I ended up passing several walkers a few times. The 2nd time I passed the same guy he said, "Hey, didn't I see you back there?" to which I replied "Yep! Running some laps!", the 3rd time he said , "Show-off!". Wow. Never been called a show-off before. Thanks, buddy.

I want to update but I have no pictures... I know, I know. More later...

I (really) Don't Want No Scrubs

My sisters and I refer to a "scrub" as someone who yells at you from a moving car. We define "getting scrubbed" as the act of being yelled at from a moving car. I can generally say that 99.99% of the time it is men "scrubbing" women. I can say that 100% of the time I have been "scrubbed" has been when I am running. I think horn-honking at a runner is only slightly less offensive than actually rolling down the window and yelling at the person. I only say this because sometimes people I know will see me running and honk the horn. Um...you a) just scared the sh*t out of me and b) made me want to flip you off because I thought you were a scrub so why don't you c) just skip the horn honking and the next time you see me in a normal situation you can say "hey! I saw you running the other day..."

Anyway, since I've started coaching my high school runners three years ago...I get scrubbed a LOT more. Probably because THEY'RE the ones getting the horn-honking and yelling...and the people in the car are thinking "who's that old lady trying to keep up with those hot, young girls?" We've had so many horn-honkings, so many inappropriate comments (really really DISGUSTING things), and even things thrown at us from moving cars. Gotta love running on the streets of a city. I try to teach my girls that it's inappropriate to give these people the finger (even though I really really want to) and that it's not really safe to gesture or yell back (what if they are REAL creepers and stop the car, turn around, and do something much worse???) I don't allow them to run with their shirts off unless we are alone, on a trail in the desert....NEVER along a road. So normally we'll make comments to each other....like "Oooh you're so cool" or "Yeah, right buddy", "you wish"....or last week I added "Grow one first" or "No thanks"... well yesterday I guess it was the last straw because one of my girls ( a calm, quiet, level-headed, intelligent girl) responded to a "scrubbing" with "F*ck you!" and then she realized she was running next to her ADULT coach said "Oh! Coach Y! I didn't mean it...I mean I did mean it but I didn't mean to swear in front of you. Sometimes I swear when I get angry and it just slipped. I am really really really sorry." She was so upset and I was not angry. Not one little bit. She just didn't want no scrub.

Looooong Overdue

Ok so....here is what's been happening since my last post in *gasp* January....

February: track season started and Keeper turned 30!! We spent the weekend celebrating with good friends in Tucson. We visited a brewery, went to an amazing restaurant for dinner, toured the gem show and had lunch at a fantastic Mexican place. I turned 31 a few weeks later and we celebrated by.... going to a spring training game and...starting a cleanse :( We were supposed to do the cleanse for 21 days...I made it 15 and Keeper made it 14... we thought that was pretty good. We gave up soy, wheat, dairy, processed sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and even MEAT the 2nd week. It was intense and I guess our livers thanked us. We were happy to be done with it. We had guests for President's Day weekend. Joy & Adam came out for a few days and we had so much fun. We did hiking, drinking, shopping....and Keeper and I celebrated our 6th anniversary with a great dinner at NOCA :)

March: More of the same...track, track, and more track. Keeper was very busy with his clinic shifts. Both of our schools had spring break...on separate weeks :( I spent mine coaching everyday, but did get to squeeze in some relaxation time and got some errands done that I'd been putting off.

Now April is 1/2 way done and... Keeper is in his LAST QUARTER OF MEDICAL SCHOOL!!! I have 6 weeks left of school for the year (4 of track). I have been running a LOT and am looking forward to some upcoming 5k's. We are trying to figure out our lives post-medical school. Everything's a bit scary as we are both job hunting and anticipating a summer move back east. We seriously cannot believe these four years are almost over!!

Marathon! and family visit too :)

2 weeks ago, I ran my 5th full marathon. Mom and Matthew made the trip out for the weekend to enjoy the beautiful AZ weather and see me run. They flew on Thursday night and on Friday, Matthew came to school with me to do a presentation on food chemistry to our honors chemistry classes at North Canyon. He did great and the kids loved him! We went out to lunch at America's Taco Shop, then headed to the race expo to pick up my goodie bags and race number. Friday night was the American Cancer Society team dinner in Tempe which was great. It really put into perspective why I ran the race and how many people will benefit from the money Team DetermiNation raised. Saturday, we drove out to Apache Junction and did some light hiking/sightseeing in Lost Dutchman State Park. We got some lunch at Dilly Deli and then came home to watch football. Keeper made me an awesome pasta dinner on Saturday night :)

The race went well overall. I raised $1,725.00 for the American Cancer Society as part of Team DetermiNation and I had a huge marathon PR of about 32 minutes. The last marathon I had run was in 2008 in San Diego, before I started coaching and running with high school kids...needless to say I guess all the training paid off. It was pretty to cool to be running my 5th marathon on the 5th anniversary of the first one I ran...and it was the same race! It feels like forever when I flew out here (in 2006) with Jen & Andrew and we stayed with the Bronders in Tempe for race weekend. The course was pretty much the same and it was neat to know exactly where I was at all times. Keeper got up early with me on race morning so we could head downtown for my charity team's pre-race "warm zone". A local Mexican restaurant had donated their "space" to us on race morning. It was awesome to have a meeting place, breakfast (NOT Mexican food, normal running food), and most importantly, CLEAN, FLUSHABLE TOILETS to use pre-race. No lines for port-a-potties that had run of toilet paper (and smelled)!!! At 7am, the marathon runners marched down to the start as a big group and I jumped in my corral. The first 6 miles were nice, I was just getting into the groove...I saw some coaches from my group a little after mile 5, and then I saw Mom, Matthew, and Keeper right around the 10k mark of the course. The race ran literally a half a block from our condo. The next few miles were nice as I ran through my "hood" and down through the Biltmore area and across Camelback Rd to Scottsdale. I saw another ACS coach around mile 14 and I was feeling great. I was doing pretty well until mile 20 ish. I saw my coach at mile 20.5 and I thought I could hang on to my pace for the rest of the race....but marathons are not exactly like that. After awhile, EVERYTHING starts to hurt and you just resort to putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to cramp up. You dump packets of salt on your tongue because you feel your calf muscles spasm-ing. You feet hurt and you feel a blister squish and pop around mile 23 (gross!). I did have to slow down the last 5 miles but nothing cramped up completely and I still finished at a decent time. I was SO GLAD to be done. After a painful walk back to the car and a shower at home, I happily consumed my favorite post-marathon meal: a giant burger, fries, and a beer. Mission accomplished.

December...in a nutshell

Sorry for not posting in...a month. Here goes...

In early December I ran my 8th half marathon as part of my marathon training. I ran the Fiesta Bowl 1/2 Marathon in Scottsdale and had a great race. I PR'd by about 7 minutes. I also did my 2nd 20 mile training run. Training was going so well that I did not take it easy after my hard race. I , instead, thought it would be good for my beat-up, 30-yr-old body to keep running (faster than I should have) the following week with my 16 & 17 yr old cross country runners. Needless to say, I was forced to take a few weeks easy and skip some long runs to nurse a sore hamstring. I think the rest was much needed, as the marathon training was, really, taking over my life. I got back in the yoga studio and have been adding more rest/cross training days...things I should have been doing all along. Oh well. Live & learn.

Our 4th East Coast Xmas Trip was a welcome distraction from intense marathon training. I flew into BWI on Monday, the 20th of December. My college friend was kind of enough to pick me up from the airport and drive me up to York. After a nap (that red-eye was rough), I drove up to the Tillinghammers' house to spend a few days with my nephews. The boys are doing great and are so much fun. We caravan-ed back to York on Wednesday night so that Mom and I could get up early on Thursday and drive back down to Baltimore to pick up Keeper. It was good to spend a few days at my parents' with everyone. Blake was especially into xmas lights this year and we had a fun car ride looking for blow-up Snoopy displays. Christmas Eve was spent doing the traditional "fancy" dinner with my parents, sisters & significant others, then church, then up to Grandma & Pap's for the late night feast with Aunts/Uncles/Cousins. It was really fun. On Xmas day everyone came to York to visit us and it was good seeing everyone.

Keeper and I woke up VERY early on the 26th to drive up to Connecticut. There was a blizzard on the way and we wanted to beat the storm (which we did). We saw the house in Milford, CT for the first time and it is beautiful. I loved being right across the street from the water.We also got to meet our nephew, Oscar, for the first time. What a cutie. The blizzard hit and we happily stayed inside to drink wine, play board games, and watch football. We didn't get hit that bad on the coast and were able to drive up to Boston on Tuesday, the 28th to visit our niece and nephews. On Wednesday, we drove around some surrounding towns and then headed down to Brooklyn. We were completely surprised at the lack of plowing 3 days after the snowstorm. Corbin's street (and several surrounding ones) hadn't been touched. We luckily found a street parking spot...right in front of the projects. We had fun seeing friends & family for dinner & drinks in Brooklyn.

By Thursday morning we were pretty exhausted from all the traveling so we decided to just head back to my parents'. We got there in late afternoon and spent a quiet evening playing Office Clue with Joy & Adam (VERY fun version of Clue--I highly recommend). New Year's Eve was spent at my parents' doing the now traditional Chinese take-out and steamed shrimp. We did make it past midnight this year and we did make up to Grandma & Pap's the next day for pork & sauerkrout. My flight left BWI on Saturday night and went back alone, as I had school on Monday and Keeper spent the week back in Connecticut visiting with doctors. He also got to go to the Jets-Bills game with his dad, which was really fun for him.

Although the weather was much milder this year compared to last year, I was still glad to back to Phoenix. Winter is the best here!